Livestock producers pleased with hold on emissions monitoring

By CAROL RYAN DUMAS

Capital Press

Congress has put a one-year stay on the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to monitor and regulate livestock emissions.

The final 2010 Department of Interior-Environmental Protection Agency Appropriations Bill, passed last week, denies funding for mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure management systems.

The $32.3 billion bill also prevents EPA from regulating those emissions under Title V of the Clean Air Act, a measure producers refer to as the "cow tax."

"Thank goodness," said Tom McDonnell, executive vice president of the Idaho Cattle Association. Reporting emissions would have been burdensome for producers, he said.

"And they (EPA) still don't have a formula on how to calculate that that we have any confidence in," he said.

Producers aren't convinced monitoring and regulation are warranted, considering the level of greenhouse gases livestock produce.

EPA's analysis shows all of agriculture contributes 6.4 percent of the country's greenhouse gases, with livestock producing about 3 percent, McDonnell said. A study by University of California-Davis comes very close to those figures, finding agriculture produces 5.7 percent and livestock 2.8 percent.

Nonetheless, EPA chose to use figures developed by the International Panel on Climate Change, which pegs livestock's contribution at 18 percent. McDonnell says that has no factual basis discernible to the industry.

"That's almost six times what EPA and our studies here are finding," he said. "It's just absolutely ridiculous. It's just complete insanity."

In addition, he said, studies show agriculture's soil sequestration of carbon dioxide is 14.8 percent.

"We're sequestering a lot more greenhouse gases than we're producing is the bottom line," he said. "Yet we're being targeted by the administration."

McDonnell said he doesn't know what form reporting might take.

"I imagine they'd give us a formula and we'd plug in how many head we had and come out with the total carbon dioxide produced," he said.

EPA would then permit each cow for the gases it produces, resulting in the "cow tax," which estimates show could be up to about $18 per head, he said.

Bob Naerebout, executive director of Idaho Dairymen's Association, said the government's attempt to monitor and regulate livestock emissions is premature.

"Our concern is the recording burden and the lack of demonstration by EPA on how they'd use the information," he said.

There is currently no language that says if a producer is over a certain emissions level he'd be required to implement best management practices or best available control technology, he said.

Not that dairymen want anymore regulation, he said.

"But we're questioning without those put in place, why do you want to collect data?" he said. "EPA's not even completed their study on monitoring livestock emission. It's way too premature at this point."

Naerebout said dairymen want to thank Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, for his efforts in conference to stop the plan. McDonnell echoed that sentiment but warned it's only a one-year stay.

Staff writer Carol Ryan Dumas is based in Twin Falls. E-mail: crdumas@capitalpress.com.